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> Genre: Fiction > I Have Always Imagined that Paradise Will Be a Kind of Library

I Have Always Imagined that Paradise Will Be a Kind of Library

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

August 19, 2019 by allisonata 2 Comments

Have you ever felt that a book was written just for you? Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is my Platonic ideal: a novel by an Elder Millennial, set in an alternate San Francisco Bay Area populated by talented, curious people, weird-but-plausible technologies, and endless shelves of books. By the time I discovered the in-story trilogy of fantasy novels and the credible centuries-old secret society, I committed to becoming a Sloan completist.

Our initially hapless first-person hero Clay Jannon is looking for a job, any job. His start-up employer NewBagel went under; turns out not many people want bagels baked by an algorithm. Meanwhile, his best friend is already living his passion and making mega tech bucks. Clay grabs the first opportunity on offer—the night shift at a tall, narrow, dusty bookstore that doesn’t seem to sell anything. Most volumes are lend-only, to a handful of old eccentrics who are “members.” (Of which club, Clay has no idea.) His cheerful boss, the wizard-like Mr. Penumbra, charges him with keeping the detailed visitor logbook, recording each person’s appearance, conversation, and disposition, as well as any financial transaction. Penumbra makes it clear that Clay may only touch books when asked, and he must never, under any circumstance, open or read them.

When screens are the dominant medium of “content consumption,” books are part of the revolutionary counterculture. Five hundred years after the printing press, the codex remains the highest of high technologies—portable, durable, modifiable, shareable—and unsurpassed in the ability to transmit thought across time and space. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a book that loves books and deserves to be held. I recommend keeping it on your bedside table. You’ll see why.

Filed Under: Fiction, Speculative Fiction Tagged With: bibliophile, bookseller, cbr11, Robin Sloan, San Francisco, secret society

allisonata's CBR11 Review No:30 · Genres: Fiction, Speculative Fiction · Tags: bibliophile, bookseller, cbr11, Robin Sloan, San Francisco, secret society ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

About allisonata

CBR11 participant

Avid reader and writer in Northern California. Interests range from history to YA to NY Times best-sellers to graphic novels. Trying to decolonize my bookshelf and make sure women get at least equal time. View allisonata's reviews»

Comments

  1. andtheIToldYouSos says

    August 19, 2019 at 4:08 pm

    this looks excellent- although, I am also on board with algorithmic bagels. Well, bagels in general. All bagels. I am too hungry to be reading right now, apparently.

    Reply
    • allisonata says

      August 21, 2019 at 6:55 pm

      page 4-5: “The company was very small and very new. It was founded by a pair of ex-Googlers who wrote software to design and bake the platonic bagel: smooth crunchy skin, soft doughy interior, all in a perfect circle. … But then the economy took a dip, and it turns out that in a recession, people want good old-fashioned bubbly oblong bagels, not smooth alien-spaceship bagels, not even if they’re sprinkled with precision-milled rock salt.” 🙂

      Reply

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